Alexandra Klass

Professor Klass teaches and writes in the areas of environmental law, tort law and property law, with a focus on the modern development of common law as a supplement to statutory and regulatory law to address current environmental protection issues.

Professor Klass has represented citizen groups, local governments, large corporations, small corporations, and individuals in litigated and regulatory matters relating to wetlands, cleanup of contaminated property, environmental review, eminent domain, land use, wind power, and flood impoundment projects, among others. She continues to advise and represent citizens groups and others in pro bono environmental matters. Professor Klass is currently on the Board of Directors of the Minnesota Chapter of the Federal Bar Association and is on the Governing Council of the Environmental, Natural Resources and Energy Section of the Minnesota State Bar Association. She served as co-chair of the Environmental Law Section of the Hennepin County Bar Association from 2000-2006.

Prior to her teaching career, Professor Klass was a Partner at Dorsey & Whitney LLP in Minneapolis, where she specialized in environmental law and land use cases. During her years in private practice from 1993-2004, she handled cases in federal and state trial and appellate courts in Minnesota and other states involving contaminated property, wetlands, environmental review law, environmental rights law, zoning, eminent domain, and environmental torts.

Professor Klass’s articles have appeared in the Minnesota Law Review, Iowa Law Review, Notre Dame Law Review, University of Colorado Law Review and Ecology Law Quarterly. Recent articles include Modern Public Trust Principles: Recognizing Rights and Integrating Standards, 82 Notre Dame L. Rev. (2006); Adverse Possession and Conservation: Expanding Traditional Notions of Use and Possession, 77 U. Colo. L. Rev. (2006); Pesticides, Children’s Health Policy, and Common Law Tort Claims, 7 Minn. J. Law, Sci. & Tech. 89 (2005); Bees, Trees, Preemption and Nuisance: Resolving Pesticide Land Use Disputes through FIFRA, 32 Ecology L.Q. 763 (2005); and From Reservoirs to Remediation: The Impact of CERCLA on Common Law Strict Liability Environmental Claims, 39 Wake Forest L. Rev. 903 (2004), Common Law and Federalism in the Age of the Regulatory State, Iowa L. Rev. 545 (2007), Punitive Damages and Valuing Harm, MN L. Rev (2007).

Professor Klass received her B.A. degree in political science and French with distinction from the University of Michigan in 1988, and her J.D. cum laude from the University of Wisconsin Law School in 1992, where she was an Articles Editor for the Wisconsin Law Review and a member of the Order of the Coif. She clerked for the Honorable Barbara B. Crabb, Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin from 1992-1993.

Alexandra Klass
University of Minnesota Law School
Minneapolis, MN
612.625.0155
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